Donald Miller Quotes

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.”

— Donald Miller

No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath ... We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? -Donald Miller,Through Painted Deserts

— Donald Miller

“And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.”

— Donald Miller

“Everybody wants to be somebody fancy. Even if they're shy.”

— Donald Miller

“Christian spirituality was not a children's story. It wasn't cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment.”

— Donald Miller

“He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn't provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn't mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she'd chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence.”

— Donald Miller

It made me wonder if the reasons our lives seem so muddled is because we keep walking into scenes in which we, along with the people around us, have no clear idea what we want.

— Donald Miller

“The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.”

— Donald Miller

“I am willing to sound dumb. I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to be passionate about something that isn't perceived as cool. I am willing to express a theory. I am willing to admit I'm afraid. I'm willing to contradict something I've said before. I'm willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one. I'm willing to apologize. I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human.”

— Donald Miller

“At the time, I didn't know what forgiveness meant. I wouldn't really know what forgiveness meant for another year, until my pastor, Rick McKinley, happened to spell it out in a sermon. He said that when you forgive, you bear the burden somebody has given you without holding them accountable.”

— Donald Miller

We don't know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending.

— Donald Miller

“I should have people around bugging me and getting under my skin because without people I could not grow - I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human.”

— Donald Miller

“The reality is people are impressed with all kinds of things: intelligence, power, money, charm, talent, and so on. But the ones we tend to stay in love with are, in the long run, the ones who do a decent job loving us back.”

— Donald Miller

“Loneliness is something that happens to us, but I think it is something we can move ourselves out of. I think a person who is lonely should dig into a community, give himself to a community, humble himself before his friends, initiate community, teach people to care for each other, love each other. Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall..If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we like to live.”

— Donald Miller

“I think the devil has tricked us into thinking so much of biblical theology is story fit for kids.”

— Donald Miller

“Perhaps that's another reason true intimacy is so frightening. It's the one thing we all want, and must give up control to get.”

— Donald Miller

I had always suspected language was quite limited in its ability to communicate the intricate mysteries of truth.

— Donald Miller

“There is a force in the world that doesn't want us to live good stories. It doesn't want us to face our issues, to face our fear and bring something beautiful into the world ... I believe God wants us to create beautiful stories, and whatever it is that isn't God wants us to create meaningless stories, teaching the world around us that life just isn't worth living.”

— Donald Miller

“NOT LONG AGO I WAS READING A PASSAGE IN THE Bible in which Jesus was praying for his disciples. He prayed that they would love each other, as he'd taught them to do. He prayed that they'd embrace a mission to teach other people to create communities that loved each other, as they'd experienced with him. When I read the passage, though, I saw it differently. He wasn't just calling them into a life of sacrifice. He was calling them into a life of meaning, even the kind of meaning that would involve suffering. Suffering for a redemptive reason is hardly suffering, after all.”

— Donald Miller

“You know you're with a Fearmonger when they overemphasize the concept of loyalty. Certainly loyalty is a virtue, but what a Fearmonger calls loyalty could better be described as complete and total submission. Fearmongers surround themselves only with people who will submit. In exchange for your submission, Fearmongers offer strength and protection, which, for many, is a security they are willing to trade their freedom for. Find a Fearmonger and you'll easily find a team of fearful, submissive personalities doing their will.”

— Donald Miller

“I DON'T KNOW WHY LOVING A WOMAN IS SCARIER than climbing a mountain or sailing an ocean, but it is. A mountain can hurt your body and an ocean can drown you, but in the end you're still a man for conquering them. Dead or alive, you're still a man. A woman, though, can rob your manhood and reduce you to a boy at the drop of a word.”

— Donald Miller

“He said before they had the twins he thought of himself as a provider and protector, as somebody who was responsible to protect the physical world around the people he loved. But after having kids he realized that was 10 percent of the battle. What he really had to protect was the twins' identity. He said there was a primal thing in him that wanted to stand between his children and the world and fight back all the lies.”

— Donald Miller

Those of us who are never satisfied with our accomplishments secretly believe nobody will love us unless we're perfect.

— Donald Miller

“I bring this up because in writing some thoughts about a father, or not having a father, I feel as though I'm writing a book about a troll under a bridge or a dragon. For me, a father was nothing more than a character in a fairy tale. I know fathers are not like dragons because fathers actually exist. I have seen them on television and sliding their arms around their wives in grocery stores, and I have seen them in the malls and in the coffee shops, but these were characters in other people's stories. The sad thing is, as a kid, I wondered why I couldn't have a dragon, but I never wondered why I didn't have a father. (page 20)”

— Donald Miller

90 percent of people's problems could be prevented if they'd choose healthier people to give their hearts to.

— Donald Miller

“Anybody who wants to get their way says that Jesus supports their view. But that isn't Jesus' fault.”

— Donald Miller

“As silly as it sounds, I realized, late that night, that other people had feelings and fears and that my interactions with them actually meant something, that I could make them happy or sad in the way that I associated with them. Not only could I make them happy or sad, but I was responsible for the way I interacted with them.”

— Donald Miller

If we live behind a mask we can impress but we can't connect.

— Donald Miller

“The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is "Do not fear." It's in there over two hundred times.”

— Donald Miller

“I began to wonder if becoming a Christian did not work more like falling in love than agreeing with a list of true principles.”

— Donald Miller

The actual language of life is not the charts and graphs and stuff we map out to feel smart. The hidden language we are speaking is really about negotiating the feeling God used to give us.

— Donald Miller

“I think our society puts too much pressure on romantic love, and that is why so many romances fail. Romance can't possibly carry all that we want it to.”

— Donald Miller

“It's true of Jamie. But I want it to be true of you too. And for that matter, me. I don't believe we are accidents in the world, and I don't believe we were supposed to be actors either. I think we were supposed to be ourselves and we were meant as a miracle. Jamie, Be encouraged. Your heart is writing a poem on the world and it's being turned into a thousand songs. Much love, Don”

— Donald Miller

“If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live.”

— Donald Miller

“We have to be taught to be good. It doesn't come natural.”

— Donald Miller

But that's done now," Jason said, shaking his head. "No girl who plays the role of a hero dates a guy who uses her. She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while." Part Two A Character

— Donald Miller

“I think, in the grand epic, Jesus is the hero of our stories. And our stories, as they were, are subplots in a grand epic and our job is not to be the hero of any story. Our job is to be a saint in a story that he is telling.”

— Donald Miller

“One of the things I love about our source text as Christians, the Bible, is that it teaches us not to avoid conflict. And it teaches us that before the fall of man, in Paradise, there was conflict. God wants conflict to be a part of your life.”

— Donald Miller

I used to write when I was in the mood or felt inspired. Anymore, I write whether I feel inspired or not. It's a discipline. So that's definitely different. It's part of maturing as a person and as a professional.

— Donald Miller

Life is a story. You and I are telling stories; they may suck, but we are telling stories. And we tell stories about the things that we want. So you go through your bank account, and those are things you have told stories about.

— Donald Miller

“There's a genius part of you that wants to create. That part of you wants to talk to God. Get out of the way.”

— Donald Miller

I often learn more about myself from listening to the life story of a friend than I do reflecting on my own story.

— Donald Miller

“Meaningful stories have lots and lots of conflict. If we avoid conflict, our stories won't be meaningful.”

— Donald Miller

“The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is.”

— Donald Miller

“We shouldn't be afraid to embrace whimsy, that nagging idea that life could be magical; it could be special if we were only willing to take a few risks.”

— Donald Miller

Flattery has a short battery life, but reminding people they are amazing and precious and wanted and works of art can truly change their lives.

— Donald Miller

“There are two types of men in this world
one is looking for a woman to make his life complete and the other is looking for a woman to join his complete life.”

— Donald Miller

“You're always weighing whether you should be that accessible or not, but my personality is naturally just to throw it all out there, so I'm much more comfortable with doing thatmy personality is naturally just to throw it all out there, so I'm much more comfortable with doing that.”

— Donald Miller

“The economy is turning around, so that's going to help a little bit.”

— Donald Miller

“I am a person of faith, so I come from a community that's involved in 360,000 churches across the country, that is an institution that could, in a relatively short period of time, provide hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of positive male role models.”

— Donald Miller